Is America Doomed?

By: Craig Chamberlain

Let’s ask ourselves as simple question: why isn’t President Obama down by 15 points? When you consider all that Obama has done over his first term you would think that voting him out of office would be the choice of a huge majority. When President Obama came into office that deficit was 160 billion dollars, large but manageable as a portion of our total GDP. Now the deficit stands at 4 trillion dollars. Let that sink in for a moment. All of President Obama’s predecessors combined didn’t spend that much money. That’s over 200 years of spending vs. 4 years of spending. That alone should get him kicked him out office. When he came into office the unemployment rate was less than 7%, today the official unemployment rate is 8.3%(this is not counting discouraged workers, or the underemployed). There’s the economic corruption of the stimulus and the bailouts with GM and Solyndra. There’s cap and trade, picking winners and losers. He’s sold us out to the Russians, insulted our Israeli and British allies, gutted the military, granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, repealed welfare reform, launched a pogrom against the churches, and, of course, gave us Obamacare.

One would not be entirely unjustified in thinking that is this were still a civilized country that cared about its constitutional liberties President Obama would have been chased into exile about three and a half years ago. So what does it say about this country that this race is a statistical dead heat, and half of the American people think that socialism, secularism, and stagflation are the way to go? It does not bode well for this country when half of the voters think that he’s doing a good job and deserves a second bite at the apple.

There are two schools of thought here. The optimists say that such hyperpartisanship is not at all uncommon in American history and a regular feature in our body politic. And that sitting Presidents are rarely defeated for a second term, and when they are it is usually a close race. They’re right on both points. Partisan fervor has ebbed and flowed throughout our history. Democrats and Federalist fought duels, rioted, and engaged in a press war that makes today’s media environment look tame by comparison. Just before the civil war Senator Charles Sumner(R-MA) was nearly beaten to death on the floor of the Senate by a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina, Prescott Brooks. It might not be a bad idea for someone to give Harry Reid a good thrashing, but fortunately our politics isn’t that poisoned, yet.

It’s also true that of the handful of Presidents who were defeated for a second term most were narrowly thrown out of office. President Bush was only defeated by a third party presence, President Ford was barely defeated by Carter,, there have been exceptions. President Carter was thrown out in a landslide, as was President Hoover. So, the optimist reasoning goes, is that it should be no surprise that the race to unseat President Obama should be so close. Perhaps. The pessimist would argue that given Obama’s record it is a bad sign for the country that the race is this close.

And I think the pessimists make the better argument. The country that elected Reagan in 1980 simply does not exist anymore. Culturally, morally, and demographically, too much has changed. While I don’t believe, as many leftists do, that demographic shifts will create a permanent progressive majority, we’re not going to see 60% of the American people stand up and vote for constitutional conservatism like they did in 1984.

We have an establishment society that breeds contempt of work, and cynicism towards society and its institutions. There’s a moral relativism, that teaches that right and wrong are merely matters of opinion. Your right can be my wrong. It pervades our moral fiber to the point where most of the younger generation can’t understand a moral dilemma, relativism recognizes no such thing. When you’re raised without morals, what can society expect?

Make up your own minds, but I believe that there’s so much cultural sludge in our society I don’t know if we can ever clean it out. When half of the population is socialistic in its politics and nihilistic in its morals, it’s hard not to think that the country envisioned by the founders and enshrined by the constitution is close to vanishing. If there is hope, and maybe there is, it’s to be found in the people, like the Tea Party that still stands up for the constitution and right and wrong.

We will know by November whether there is hope or not. If President Obama is reelected to a second term it won’t matter what happens in 2016 or beyond, it’s all over if he gets to take another oath of office.